Martin Makes Strong `Leap' Into Thin Story

December 18, 1992|By MALCOLM JOHNSON; Courant Film Critic

Sporting a coppery toupee, Steve Martin gets serious and makes a credible bid for an Oscar nomination in "Leap of Faith," Richard Pearce's biting, satirical, finally mystical investigation into the unholy goingson within a touring evangelical tent show. But changing his hair and darkening his image isn't quite enough to bring the wild and crazy guy annointment at the movies' high altar this year.

The most challenging role since the standup star turned to the screen in "The Jerk" casts Martin as Jonas Nightengale, the slick, smart, computerassisted scam master who leads a gaggle of assistants and gospel singers across the American heartland -- also known as Pearce Territory. Martin, whose attire ranges from wraparound shades and a tightly rolled black cowboy hat to a mirror jacket, gives his all to the role, squinting his eyes calculatingly in Nightengale's private moments, declaiming like a holy roller and dancing up a storm on stage. But although he presents an intriguingly divided portrayal and delivers a good show up there, Martin can't quite make the leap into acting greatness. Burt Lancaster can rest assured that his "Elmer Gantry" remains the movies' most exciting, glamorous religious bunco artist.

But then the screenplay concocted by Janus Cercone never touches Richard Brooks' adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' novel. Pearce, whose Americana films range from "Heartland" and "Country" to the fine "The Long Walk Home," fills "Leap of Faith" with authentic looks at smalltown life and at the herding instinct that can suddenly turn to unearthly mass fervor. The look of the film, designed by Patrizia Von Brandenstein and photographed by Matthew F. Leonetti, proves endlessly fascinating -- even conveying the notion that bigtop Christian fever might be scarily contagious. But Cercone's story line undercuts the directorial touches at every turn.

Pearce opens with a shot of a highway glazed with heat refractions into an almost abstract image as a convoy pulls closer and closer. As two buses and two semis pass, their emblazoned legends flash across the screen: Jonas Nightengale/Miracles and Wonders. The driver of the lead bus looks worried, though, as he

watches his tiny TV. A cruiser is on their tail. The almighty Jonas promises he will take care of everything. He cons the fat trooper by divining his personal troubles and offering comfort and a free long-distance call.

This opening vignette gets "Leap of Faith" off to a telling start. Martin endows Nightengale with charisma, shrewdness and seeming sincerity. In the scene with the poor overweight cop, who has lost his wife and daughter to a rich man, and in some showy fun and games at a smalltown eatery, Martin presents the duality that becomes so central to Pearce's film. Nightengale can move people, and he feels cynical about it. But he is no Bob Roberts. Although he tells himself Christianity is just a business, a show, there's also a fundamental honesty about this bigtime con man.

All this provides Martin with a juicy part, and he makes the most of it, right up to the ambiguous, oddly uplifting ending. But "Leap of Faith" too often seems like a one-man show, with other characters going through the motions of providing background for Nightengale.

Even Debra Winger, as the scam king's chief lieutenant and computer wizard, has only to play it smart and sardonic and fall in love with the local sheriff. As played by dour Liam Neeson without barely a trace of a regional accent -- the film unwinds in Rustwater, Ark., probably somewhere near Hope -- he is the cardboard adversary who sees himself the protector of the poor, benighted Arkansans. Lolita Davidovich, a waitress at the greasy spoon, also suspects Nightengale and fends off his advances in a paperthin role. But although his part is small, Lukas Haas delivers the film's most powerful performances as her crippled adolescent brother.

The individuals in the black gospel troupe are merely sketched, never developed. But they provide a potent sound that dramatizes the preaching and fills the thin story with divine glory. These unsung heroes make the saga of Jonas Nightengale sing.

Rated PG-13, this film contains some impolite talk, some dialogue and touches some may regard as profane, and the implication of a liaison between the sheriff and the con woman.